When I was at Calvin, I went to the Calvin-Hope games that were played at Calvin, where I would get caught up in a mob mentality and exhibit extremely poor sportsmanship. I remember that if Calvin was ahead, we would yell, "There's no hope! There's no hope!" And if the game was ending with a Calvin victory, we would sing, "Na, na, na, na. Na, na, na, na. Hey, hey, hey, good-bye." They sang the same to us if they won, but they couldn't come up with a yell as good as, "There's no hope," because the name "Calvin" just doesn't lend itself to good yells.

Actually, even though I love the church I've belonged to all my life, and to which my family has belonged for a couple centuries, and the college my family has attended for three generations, I must admit that both "Christian Reformed Church" and "Calvin College," are somewhat needlessly nerdy names. But, oh, well, I'm all the more loyal. Speaking of which, when we sang the Calvin song, I rather fell down in the second verse. I need to brush up on those words.

Speaking of my family's generations, even the name Kok requires explaining outside of Dutch circles and calls forth extra levels of loyalty to compensate. Or I could disclaim, like Gideon.